


OPEN COLLAR

by spicyshimmy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Dirty Talk, M/M, Slash, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:32:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaidan's voice was made for this. Shepard watches; Kaidan talks. And somehow, it isn't embarrassing. <i>Sometimes it was about closing distances and sometimes it was about maintaining them. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	OPEN COLLAR

Shepard had been there once, drifting through space. From the way he talked about it—now and then, only when the lights were off—he’d thought his life was over.

Kaidan didn’t know what that was like.

Sure, he’d had his fair share of close calls and near misses, like the one on Mars, moments he thought too much about—even if they didn’t keep him up at night, they made their way to the back of his brain and he felt them in his sleep, wondering what he could’ve done to make a difference. At the end of the day, he couldn’t change what happened. They all had to live with what came next.

Only some things _could_ be changed, even the unchangeable. Which was what Shepard was doing all the time, arms crossed over his chest, and what Cerberus had done for Shepard, and what they were all trying to do for themselves.

It wasn’t easy. Neither was drawing the comparisons.

It followed them into the bedroom like Shepard followed Kaidan in there, but it stopped in the doorway like Shepard stopped in the doorway. Kaidan dropped to the edge of the bed, right there in the middle of the room, and nodded to the couch across the way.

‘Relax a little,’ he said. ‘Sit down, maybe.’

He tried to picture it, Shepard sitting there alone with bad music on, watching his fish, or leaning against the wall with one arm up, forehead resting on his wrist. Kaidan could see the glow from all different colors of unnatural light on Shepard’s skin, between the cracks and the scars, set against the shadows.

He touched one of the snaps at his throat. The _pop_ it made when it came undone was something he felt instead of something he heard—but it was enough to set Shepard in motion anyway, door sliding shut behind him. The red light went on overhead. It was locked and if you didn’t count the Belan Jellyfish and the Khar’shan Snapping Eel, they had their privacy.

Sometimes Kaidan counted them and sometimes he didn’t, catching Shepard feeding the fish only once, even with the feeder VI to do the job for him, on a night when Kaidan came up behind him and kissed the scar at the nape of his neck, just under his collar.

Sometimes it was about closing distances and sometimes it was about maintaining them.

Kaidan hooked his fingers under his own collar, letting it fall open over his collarbone. It wasn’t about the fish and if it had been, it’d be a whole lot easier. Shepard eased himself down on the couch, palms on his knees, but he never found a position that suited him the same way standing in front of one of Hackett’s transmissions did. Shepard couldn’t cross his arms over his chest now. One hand came close, _close_ , up the inside of his thigh, but he braced his palms there instead of touching anything.

‘Hey,’ Kaidan said, legs splayed a little wider.

Shepard nodded; he didn’t answer, except with his posture. He spread his legs a little wider, too.

It was the longest conversation they’d had in twenty-four hours. Kaidan chuckled, the sound coming out raw. Sometimes he didn’t know where his voice came from but it’d stopped scaring him a long time ago, when he realized that was okay. It was something Shepard could do to him with a single look and yeah, Kaidan was okay with that.

‘Not feeling talkative.’ Kaidan cleared his throat, even if he didn’t need to. He took the next couple of snaps slow, his own fingers brushing his warm skin. ‘All right. I get that. Like I said—you should relax a little. You can relax.’

Whether or not Shepard believed him… That was another story. He shifted backward and Kaidan shifted up, the muscles in his thighs tightening, going for his belt and leaving some stuff in between still covered.

There was no art to this. Kaidan had figured it out the same way anyone else would, with a little research and a whole lot of instinct, and loving somebody so much he forgot to be embarrassed. The things Shepard did to him with his eyes—it wasn’t just Kaidan’s voice that tore itself to pieces when he felt it but his stomach, too, and the heat that spread over his belly, over his thighs. Kaidan got the belt off and he wasn’t the type to throw it over the edge; he pushed his body closer to the center of the bed, back hitting the mattress, staring up at the skylight above him.

The view Shepard got every night.

Fish on one side. Stars overhead, but technically all around. Kaidan could see a new heat, white bursting with something orange-blue, thrusters burning while they moved. They were always moving, fuel always being burned, and that was how Kaidan felt standing in the same room with a guy—with a guy he needed.

Without a belt to get in the way, Kaidan could push his blue camouflage pants down to his knees. He did, and he spread his legs, just thinking about Shepard. The fabric was tight around his calves but he kept them wide apart, heels skirting the bottom of the bed, then pushed the elastic of his briefs down over his dick to his balls. The cotton was already damp from nothing more than Shepard across the way, or thinking about Shepard’s hands on his own thighs.

‘Feels good, doesn’t it?’ Kaidan said. ‘Just being alone. Just the two of us, doing this together. I’ve been thinking about it, Shepard. Thinking about it all day.’

Shepard’s sigh, breath snaring in his throat, said he’d been thinking about it too.

That was how Kaidan knew it was more than okay.

‘Wouldn’t let it compromise doing my duty,’ Kaidan added. ‘But it’s there, Shepard. It’s always there. Thinking about you… Thinking about being alone with you…’

He spread his thighs with his knuckles pressed to the insides, fatigues dropping to his ankles and giving him more room to maneuver. He touched the base of his dick, rolling his balls in his palm, running his thumb up the base to the tip. It was something they all knew how to do, and Shepard…

Shepard needed what Kaidan could give him.

There was sweat on the side of Kaidan’s neck, at his temples, hair stuck to his forehead. He pressed his thumb into the slit and it came away sticky, hips rising off the bed to push into his grip. He knew those were his hands, one braced in the sheets to hold himself up, the other wrapped around his dick, but Shepard’s hands were always there in this way Kaidan couldn’t explain, a way he couldn’t even hold onto.

‘Thinking about the way you touch me—’ Kaidan began, but couldn’t finish. And that was part of it, because it wasn’t a show in the first place, and whatever came—whatever didn’t come—couldn’t get in through the airlock around the doorframe.

Kaidan groaned instead. He’d found that rhythm, the same one that powered the ship, thrusters always burning. The bed didn’t creak; it was built hard, sturdy, just like Shepard, only across the cabin Shepard himself was breathing rough and heavy, loud enough that Kaidan could hear him.

He waited until the grunt that came after, one short and one long, followed by a deep breath Shepard let out instead of pulling in. Shepard was touching himself at the same time, not a mirror image but a shared experience, and Kaidan let it happen to him once Shepard let go, hot into his palm, though he never stopped to think about making a mess of everything.

It was a lot like falling, or drifting through space. But Kaidan’s back was on the sheets, always neatly made, like nobody even slept here at night.

Kaidan knew that wasn’t true.

He tugged at the elastic on his briefs, thoughtful, letting Shepard watch for a few seconds longer. It wasn’t easy, but it was something they had. Then, Kaidan rolled over onto his elbow and reached for the antibacterial tissues to clean up.

Shepard kept watching with his pupils blown, nothing to hide behind but space.

‘Come to bed, Shepard,’ Kaidan said, throwing the balled-up tissue away. He rolled his fatigues off and rolled his hips forward and Shepard came to him after coming for him, pushing both his hands past Kaidan’s open collar to the warm skin beneath. 

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Ademska/Kinneas for the beta. And this is for Mo/Cuddlingthecthulhu, whose fault it so is!


End file.
